SANs Key to Nortel's Future

Nortel's new Metro Optical president says SANs play a key role in the company's metro strategy

Storage area networks are a key focal point for Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE/Toronto: NT). So says Marco Pagani, the newly appointed president of its Metropolitan Optical division.

Storage networking is a key trend, Pagani says. SANs and associated interconnections represent lots of work for Nortel. The company looks to SANs to mine ongoing business for its metro networking products, he asserts, most specifically the Optera Metro 5200 DWDM platform.

The 5200 uses dense wavelength-division multiplexing to maximize the use of optical fiber in metro networks. The platform was recently upgraded to support 10-Gbit/s Ethernet links, in response to similar announcements from competitors Ciena Corp. (Nasdaq: CIEN) and ONI Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ONIS).